Mercy Implements SNAP Huddles

Posted on: December 7, 2017

To help prepare the hospital for the future of health care delivery, Mercy Medical Center has partnered with Care Logistics, a company with more than a decade of experience working with hospital partners to implement breakthrough approaches to care coordination and throughput efficiency, combined with innovative human logistics software. This process is a transformational journey, which will take the commitment of our physicians and employees to ensure that we are providing exceptional care for every patient, every day. That means the transformation begins the moment a patient arrives and assures a predictable hospital stay that is safe, reliable and coordinated, resulting in optimal patient throughput from admission to discharge.

What stays the same?
Daily physician rounds with PCCs and primary RNs. The Care Manager/primary RN will bring updated patient information obtained from the physicians during rounding to the SNAP huddle. The daily Multi-Disciplinary Rounds (MDRs) have been renamed as SNAP Huddles and enhanced.

What is new?
Daily SNAP Huddles: Status Now Action Planning (SNAP) huddles will occur daily on nursing units to discuss each patient and identify barriers to patient progression. Accountability is assigned for all barriers and barriers are escalated, if needed. Leadership attends escalation huddles to help resolve barriers.
Target Length of Stay (TLOS) for each patient: DRG-based length of stay targets have been determined by a multi-disciplinary team based on Mercy’s past year’s performance and desired LOS performance for this coming year. This allows the Patient Care Coordinator (PCC) and team to track “day X of Y” where Y is the TLOS for each patient, each day.

As physicians, you play an important role in driving care for our patients. Your input and support is critical to our success. Please feel free to ask to join SNAP huddles, if they are occurring while you are on the unit. For more information about SNAP, please contact David Gormsen, D.O., chief medical officer, Mercy Medical Center.